


The Words You Speak Confuse Me

by CescaLR



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: (when I figure out what they need to be WHoops), Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Fate & Destiny, Gen, Isu engineering of humans oh dear, M/M, Minerva's very interesting but she's still an Isu you know, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, The Calculations, anyway, so there's that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-01-21 07:55:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21296090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CescaLR/pseuds/CescaLR
Summary: The Words are important.Everyone has them - they're just something you're born with. Strange, golden lines that grow on your skin, over time, from the moment you're born until they coalesce, gather into legible text, gather into words difficult to comprehend until heard. People are people, made for other people, moulded to fit each other by Those That Came Before, and The Words decide your fate. It is how it is, how it's always been.A happy ending was never guarenteed.
Relationships: Clay Kaczmarek | Subject 16/Desmond Miles, Desmond Miles/Lucy Stillman, Lucy Stillman & Rebecca Crane & Shaun Hastings, Rebecca Crane & Desmond Miles, Rebecca Crane/Shaun Hastings
Comments: 30
Kudos: 72





	1. Minerva. | Prologue.

**Author's Note:**

> Soulmate AU. But not in the nice way. 
> 
> (the Isu are dicks, but we been knew _that._

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Minerva makes a choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some background information.

The Rebellion was not what started it.

This had always been in place, the system. It was easier to grow the humans, to gain more of them if they had designated reproductive partners, after all. The Words were like brands on breeding pairs, and those with them were drawn to each other. Juno had found it easiest. Minerva had found it most convenient, for her own excuse. The others had their own reasons. Artemis hadn't bothered. Venus didn't do it, didn't brand her humans like cattle to be bred before the slaughter.

(Consequently, Venus' were happiest, Minerva has observed. Many of them pair up, even outside of breeding couples. There is little point to those unions, unable to breed and expand the population... but there is use in them, Minerva has found. She has designated a certain amount of those types of humans in her own horde, to keep the population at a manageable level. Unlike Juno, Minerva does not overestimate herself.)

But Juno was Juno. And Minerva grew sympathetic. With the calculations as they were, with her life minutes before it's fated to end, millennia before that, she saw where all this would lead. Minerva had always been best at the calculations, at seeing the outcome. Juno had always been best at manipulating the calculations, achieving her own agenda. Tinia was the most... free, the one with the least attachment, the one most able to passively observe. Perhaps it was a flaw, in Minerva's flawless self, perhaps in her creation, something had stuck, something not meant for the Isu, something more and something less, all at once.

Minerva finds she cares. Not to any degree noticeable, not to anyone other than herself. But she finds she cares. She is pleased in a broader sense than Juno's self-satisfied nature, she is rational in a less (and yet more) far-reaching manner than Tinia's mild apathy. Mild, because he is mild. His temper is fleeting and mostly non-existent. He will, along with herself, along with _Juno, _plan to try and halt their own inevitable destruction, but... his nature will slow the progress. He will wane, as he does, in his interest in saving himself. Tinia is the most Isu of them all, and in that, he is doomed.

Juno is too proud. Minerva cares too much. Tinia's emotions are as hollow as a plastic bottle. As fabricated as one, too. Just as man-made, as he is a man, that made them. Puts them on like a shirt, like a toga to be worn and discarded.

Minerva doesn't wish for things. As an Isu, what she wants can be gained, with a thought, with an imperative command aimed at one of her many subordinates. The word the future will use is slaves, she has seen, and it would fit, at any other time. From any other perspective.

Minerva may care more. But she is still an Isu. The way she sees things, her viewpoint - it is different to the humans she so values, for their very ability to think in a way she cannot. Isu are not creative. Humans, with their left-brained and right-brained simplification of the complex genetic engineering used in creating creative beings... they are superior. Everything about them may be fabricated. Everything about them may be out of their control, at the behest of a being far older and far more powerful than they could ever hope to be - but... despite their lack of freedom, despite their lack of choice, despite the words on their skin, despite the apples' control over them, despite everything Minerva's ilk have done -

They can think for themselves.

Minerva can see, in the future, what Juno will do. And Minerva can see, in the future, what _people _will do. It is a hard choice, to make, to disregard the efficiency of leaving the words only for breeding, to disregard the logical use of breeding pairs entirely, to let chance and the calculations choose who each human is paired with, to let it be male or female or otherwise, to let it be more than one or none at all - because Minerva is so many millenia away from her own downfall. She can see it, yet, she cannot grasp it. The sun is as dormant as ever. Juno has not betrayed them, yet. The Rebellion is happening, she supposes, as she considers the buildup as part of it - but it is not here, yet, Adam and Eve are not a part of Juno's flock.

Minerva spends a lot of time amongst her humans. It helps keep them under her thumb, but she picks up habits. She picks up _attachment. _And as she watches the future, sees herself fall, sees Desmond Miles, the Cipher, chosen with no choice, dead before he's born because the calculations deem it so - born with no words, because Juno needed this...

Minerva hesitates. She doesn't, for once, brush it aside, the future, to be dealt with at a later date. She stares up at her temple, yet another miraculous feat of human engineering and artistry, lacking the tools and technical magic of the Isu as they do, yet still building a temple large enough to hold her entire family (the Isu are family, in the sense that they were born the same way and have known each other for as long as any can recall - not that this means anything, to any of them) and then some -

And she cannot allow this tragedy. Let Juno's flock fight. Let Artemis' hunting party roam. Let Tinia's workers build weapons and fight, let him ignore it all as their civilization falls.

But Minerva's horde _will not fall. _They are her people. She designed them, with their beauty, with their faults, with their creativity. Minerva is a thinker. Her people invented art. The art of construction. The art of function. The art of science. The beauty in all things technical, because Minerva sees it. There is a beauty in it, and her people found it, nurtured it, built temples to stand the test of time, scientifically sturdy, beautifully constructed, pleasingly functional. There is no real art here, not like what Minerva has witnessed, decorating the walls of future temples - not like that which will cover walls of buildings entirely dedicated to their display - but there is something, a certain design that reminds her of a sculpture made of straight lines and blocky metal, a curve that reminds her of the flourishes of art deco architecture - she can see it, here, the way humans break their bonds, their code, and she wants to help them. To encourage.

When Minerva steps into the temple, she knows she's made her decision. She can see it in the future, the words that blossom on Desmond Miles' skin.

_"Hello," _She reads, the language of that future place, the language Desmond Miles speaks. _"This is... eh, w-th-the-they call me Subject Sixteen - listen, I don't have much time, there's somethiinnnn- I have to show you."_

The words wrap around his right arm, the bicep, curling around and distorting at strange moments, broken like a record, scratched in a way that Minerva recognises. She can hear it, now, through Desmond's future, the broken glitching voice of a man who's body is lost, somewhere in a river, but barely gone cold, in relative terms. 

Adam and Eve are not born yet, Minerva knows. They will be paired, thanks to Juno's zealous breeding program, and that - that is the spark of their downfall. Minerva just isn't sure when it will happen - but she knows, now, and knew, then, that she is doomed regardless.

"A bunker." She commands. "Bury yourselves below ground. When the rebellion occurs, decide what you want to do." And they follow her orders, mindlessly, build the bunker they won't recall until it is time to use it, as all of these people before her will be long dead. And so Minerva alters them, alters The Words, alters the way they work, weaves the calculations into their make-up like cloth in a tapestry. The tapestry of humankind.

Minerva can see into the calculations, but at this point, at the point where it is too late to stop her changes, too early to see their far reaching-consequences, she hopes, for the first time, she _hopes. _She hopes she made the right choice.

Desmond Miles is Juno's Cipher. He's Minerva's Key. Key to success, key to Juno's cage, Key - and hope. Minerva is an Isu. Her thoughts are harsh and cold, mechanical, perfunctory.

But because of this, because of the future, because of time, because of the consequences - for a moment, she thaws. And she _hopes. _

* * *


	2. Desmond. | i | To Be Free Just To Be (If Only).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Desmond gets out, finds out, and figures out what it all _means_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. Sort of.

Desmond was the only one on The Farm to have his words. He knows this, because The Words are getting rarer by the year, and whenever someone has theirs start to show, it's big news. They start showing when you're born, so the whole fanfare isn't something you know about - nobody remembers being born, after all. But the looks you get. The smiles. The scowls. The praise, confusing and strange - it's not like Desmond _did _anything, he was just born - lucky or unlucky, depending on your opinion. And the scorn, which... well, Desmond was used to scorn. More so than he was used to praise if he's honest.

Desmond is twelve. The words are on his right bicep, and that makes them really hard to look at. The mirror flips them so he can't read them, and he's not allowed a camera, and most certainly not allowed a phone, so he can't take a look at them that way, either. And Desmond - Desmond doesn't have any friends he could ask, and, unfortunately, even if he _did, _it wouldn't matter. Only you and your Other (or others, depending on the person) can read them. So he's back to square one.

Anyway. Now he's twelve, and he turned twelve two weeks ago, he is able to read them. Something about maturity, blah blah. He really does want to, because - well. You know. It'd be nice, to know what to listen out for.

But he can't. His mom, who's usually more lenient than his dad, won't even take a picture of them so he can have a go at reading them. Desmond's not sure why everyone's so adverse to the idea of him knowing what his Other is going to be saying to him when he meets them, but it leaves a strange feeling in his gut, low and settled, that makes him want to squirm in discomfort. He's not sure what it is, but it feels a lot like something he's started to feel more often, lately, as he's gotten older.

Resentment. Anger.

Hurt.

* * *

Desmond Miles is sixteen when he runs away from home. It's pitifully easy, to get away from the farm. The area where the houses are is walled, but the walls are about as old as Desmond, and they don't have enough people to justify having someone's job be 'keep the wall in top shape' over 'keep the totally normal company Abstergo 'off our tails' and also go out and kill people, because we're lying fucking murderers.' 

Okay, that last part is Desmond's interpretation. But, well, he's glad, at the very least, The Farm's gotten a bit complacent about having any _unwilling _cult members who might, you know, want to _escape. _

Desmond slips out, past the two guards - an old guy, and a blonde girl around Desmond's age that he didn't recognise in the dark - and into the woods around the compound.

Now. To get the hell out of dodge.

* * *

Desmond ends up in a motel after three days straight travel as far away from The Farm as he could go. Still, he's only human, and he can't go much longer without sleep unless he wants to pass out on the road and get picked up by one of the many creeps in the world, some of which he used to live with and have been attempting to search around where the cult is to find him.

They haven't yet. Desmond's pretty sure he's lost their tail, but he's going to go further west before he can feel safe about that assumption.

Anyway. Now he's alone, the fact that he's free finally settles in. Desmond's got his ID, which he can't use because it's _his _ID. He's got some money he managed to scrounge up before he left, using that handy training they gave him to sneak away little bits and pieces for a few months before he left, from his parents.

He'd been planning this for... a long time. _That _was just the last straw. Desmond yawned, then winced at how it stretched the gash on his lip. And, yeah, it was a gash. Cutting your lip was one thing, but this - this was _going _to scar, and it went up enough past the top of his lip to count as a gash, in Desmond's own opinion.

Annoying, because it was an identifier. But there wasn't much he could do about it. Getting it treated would be - a bad idea. And Desmond had never been very good at first aid. Still, the first the Desmond did, after standing around and yawning in his room for a bit, was go into the on-suite and set about cleaning and generally looking after his wound.

Desmond would have grimaced at himself in the mirror - he looked a wreck, it was a surprise the receptionist hadn't immediately called the cops. But he didn't, because the would _hurt, _and instead, Desmond set about fixing up his top lip as best he could with minimal supplies. He gritted his teeth at the sting as he disinfected the wound, cleaned up the leaking blood and washed off the dry blood from the bottom of his face, and then stuck a plaster over the torn skin. He didn't have any stitches, or what have you. Just a branded half-empty box of band-aids and a bottle of alcohol. 

That one was mostly to piss off his dad if he's honest.

Desmond sighed, watched his reflection in the mirror. He leaned on the sink, sighed again, then ran the tap, hoped to god the water was safe and took a grateful drink. It tasted a bit metallic, but not _wrong, _so, fingers crossed. He took out the mouthwash from his bag, rinsed out, then put it in the cabinet behind the mirror. Desmond hadn't been able to take _everything, _and they shared toothpaste, so there was no point bringing his toothbrush unless he wanted to explain why the toiletries were missing before he left. The mouthwash - well, he'd stolen that from a 7-11 on the way here, along with a bottle of water and a shitty ham sandwich.

Assassin skills strike again. Desmond half-scowled at the mirror, then sighed once more. He had one last thing to do, something he's been wanting to do for as long as he's been able to. Desmond tried so many times, _so_ _many times, _but he just hasn't had the chance.

Desmond stole a polaroid from some college kid that was too busy making on her partner to notice, and now - now was his chance. He could finally fucking see what all that god-damned fuss was about.

Desmond went back into the bedroom, took off his hoodie and chucked it on the bed, followed by his t-shirt. He opened his backpack, grabbed the polaroid, and took a few pictures of his bicep, circling around until he'd gotten all the words.

All of The Words, rather.

Desmond shook each photograph until he could see them, then stared. The Words had always had a slight glow to them, something strange and unnatural. A lot of people compared The Words to - something like circuitry, running within the skin in sharp angles and straight lines, shining oddly, glinting in the sun, as brilliant and reflective as gold.

In photos, the glare was more obvious. It made it harder to read the words but read them he could - if he squinted, a little. It took a minute to figure out where The Words started, which photo he'd need to read first - but figure it out, he did.

As he read, a sort of numbness settled in, between his shoulder-blades, a strange sort of disappointment, a mild annoyance, confusion.

That's it?

That's what his Words are?

Cryptic fucking bullshit. _Subject Sixteen. _Desmond thought - Desmond thought getting away from the farm would stop this shit. Would - he's not sure. Let him have a quiet life. Maybe he's just not meant for that, as much as he wants to be.

Desmond reads the words again. And again.

_"Hello," _Desmond reads, the numbness spreading. _"This is... eh, w-th-the-they call me Subject Sixteen - listen, I don't have much time, there's somethiinnnn- I have to show you."_

Desmond thought he was _done _with this **bullshit. **

* * *

And so, not for the first time in human history - A human doesn't want their Words.

* * *


	3. Clay. | i | To Have A Choice, In The End (If Only).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Subject Sixteen?"
> 
> Clay's always known his future doesn't lie with his father's company. And as much as he hates his dad, hates his company, hates his expectations most of all, as much as he knows he'd just up and wither and die if he followed them -
> 
> Well. At least that death would be slower. A death of the self sounds... worse. 
> 
> Still. Fate gets us all, in the end. How you come at it is the judge of your character, and Clay's neither going to be dragged screaming or walked all over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's his choice to follow this path. Plenty of people cross out their words, in one way or another. Clay's bed was made for him, and it's his choice to lie in it. 
> 
> The first paragraph of the last scene begins with Clay's sucide attempt, as fore-warning. 'nothing good in the end' is the end of the paragraph before, and 'maybe his words' starts the one after, if you want to make sure you know when to skip, if you want to.

Ever since Clay was young, he's known he was different. Smarter than the vast majority of the people he met. Not as good at conversation. He thought about things too much. When he was very young, tests made him nervous enough to cry, and that was that.

People pick at anything, enough to scar, to make scabs bleed and never heal.

See, the thing is, Clay is also fairly logical. He's different for other reasons than simply being the only kid at school to have a therapist, when he hits high-school, instead of gaining one at some point down the line. He's not the only kid with anxiety, that's not new.

But he's the only kid with Words. Legible ones, that he knows. And he's the only one that doesn't scowl at the lines on their arms, or grin proudly, or giggle happily, or smile uncomfortably.

"Hey, hot-stuff," Is this one guy's words. "Nice to meet you, I'm Sarah," Is this one girl's words - she gets certain attention because of it. It's not pleasant, and Clay doesn't like seeing it, and he gets into detention sometimes because of it, but it's better he gets a black eye than she does. He can take it. She's barely five foot tall, and she's slim as anything.

(Only you and your Other can read your words, which just incentivises people to be as fucking nosy, insensitive, and abrasive as possible.)

"Subject sixteen?" Are unusual words, to say the least.

"What the fuck?" The guy who asked, who's been known to pick on people based on their words, says.

"You and me both, _pal." _Clay looks back down at his book. Computers are far, _far _more interesting than this conversation. Clay is fourteen. He's known about his words for two years, now. The novelty has worn off, and by this point, they don't confuse him any more. 

Whether or not their meaning scares him - that's a different matter. His therapist tells him not to worry about it and gives him a cookie whenever it comes up, which doesn't really help at all if he's honest. His dad doesn't like him having the same therapist for very long, anyway. Maybe the next one will be better at their job.

* * *

Clay doesn't really have any friends, which is fine by him. Uni's a change of pace from high school, what with being in a different state, too far from his dad for him to bother calling in and making sure Clay's having a shit enough day, and the people here aren't so bothered with him having his Words. They leave him well enough alone, and that's good enough for Clay.

It leaves him vulnerable, though.

There's a girl, who visits the campus. She's definitely not old enough to be here, unless she's some form of genius, in which case, nice one, but - probably not. Statistically speaking, it's unlikely. Clay's the only actually smart person here. His dad didn't want to shill out for his education, never has done, so Clay's stuck, again. Mandatory engineering, mandatory construction, mandatory internship in this branch of the company, mandatory mandatory _mandatory. _

Clay's sick of it. But he hasn't got a therapist to talk to about it right now, because - well, who knows. His dad probably hasn't bothered to find one yet, after he fired the last one. Not that he can 'fire' her, but that's certainly the impression he gave off.

Regardless.

There's this girl. Too young to be here, definitely. She's at least half a decade his junior, and since this is Clay's first year - well, one plus one...

She keeps frowning at him. Not staring, exactly, her eyes dart about too much for that. But frowning. Maybe she thinks he's pitiful, sitting all alone in the library, but - pot, kettle. Maybe she caught him taking his meds, once, people tend to stare after that.

It's strange.

Sometimes, there's a man that talks to her. He looks nothing like her, so not related. She defers to him, though, definitely.

It's like - it's a strange thought, but it's like they're scouting. Scoping out something. The thought reminds him of his words - _"Subject Sixteen?" _and it makes him wonder. Are these the people that capture him? Something has to go wrong, for him to be a human subject.

Still. The girl stops showing up, eventually. It doesn't ever really leave his mind, but... he stops thinking about it.

* * *

Clay's on the job, disregarding his work in favour of a book on space travel when he hears the site has a visitor, someone to inspect the place. He grimaces, puts away his book, adjusts his tie and puts his heavy blazer back on, re-buttons the top two buttons of his shirt. He stands, leaves his office - which isn't really an office, but, you know - and goes to greet the visitor. He's an older man, Clay can't quite tell how much, and he's got a - severe sort of expression, but he's not exactly dressed like an inspector. Too practical, not enough show, not enough style and sleaze. 

Clay shows him around, explains everything, attempts some pride instead of utter boredom and probably fails, and then they go to his 'office', in his not-that-fancy trailer, to... go over the reports, Clay thinks.

That is not what occurs.

"Are you happy here?" The man asks.

No, Clay thinks. "Why?" Clay asks, instead.

"You have a very impressive resume," The man says. His name is Bill Mercer. Or, that's what Clay was told. The man puts his briefcase on the desk, and opens it.

Inside looks like a lot of classified documents. Some other stuff, too.

"You have a lot of potential," Bill says.

And Clay's always wanted more than - this. Even though he knows what it means. Clay's arm itches, a phantom thing, a reminder of the path he's going down. This is shady as all get out, but Clay knows the truth of it. He knows this is what he's supposed to do.

* * *

There is one thing about Clay's Words that have always confused him, though. They're on his arms, one around his right wrist, the other on his left. 

Nobody else can see them. When people say no-one but you and your Other can read the words, they are correct, but that doesn't mean people can't _see _them. Everyone can see the marks, but only you and your Other can make heads or tails about them.

No-one can see Clay's. They've just always assumed they're somewhere awkward, like the inside of his thigh.

Clay never corrected them. He's different, and he's always known what that meant.

(Nothing good, in the end.)

* * *

Clay rips his wrists open, pours himself, his lifeblood, dripping red, all over the walls of his sterile room and into the torturous animus, and he's never heard the words on his wrists, the words he just mangled, the words he's lived his life by, and he feels cheated, because it wasn't supposed to be like this, he doesn't think. 

Maybe the words count his AI as himself. Maybe that's why nobody could see them.

Clay dies on the animus, and wakes up inside it, listens to the warnings of the machine as his body gives up but he's - still there. Alive in the depths of technology, alive in the sense that he's code, 1s and 0s, a person trapped as an AI, no longer a person, now a construct, stuck forever and a day in a place that he _hates. _

Clay is dead.

And he is here.

He, the AI, not-quite-not-Clay, looks down at his wrists. They look like his wrists, and there, shining golden, are his words, lit up over his wounds like - like - like they aren't even _affected. _

He, the AI, not-quite-not-Clay, stares, then laughs hysterically.

Juno was right, of course. _Of course she was. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clay's too smart for his own good. And /way/ too self-sacrificing.


	4. Desmond | ii | To Meet Your Fate With Open Arms (If Only).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Desmond knows, the second he hears it. He knew before that, though.

Desmond, when he wakes up in Abstergo, wakes up with the knowledge that the Farm wasn't lying and the cult wasn't a cult and Abstergo _are _Templars and _are _dangerous and is shoved, unceremoniously, into the animus again - he notices, on the hud, before he's put under, that he's subject seventeen. There might've been a subject sixteen on the display before it changed over to him, but Desmond was still reeling, and he'd barely read the fact that he was apparently the _seventeenth _person abducted for this program, that there was something about memories and levels of synch, before the - strangely familiar Abstergo employee, Lucy, put him back under.

It can't be a coincidence, Desmond knows. It just _can't _be.

But he's under, and he's Altair, but not, because he can't do _this, _what is this he doesn't _understand - _and he's Altair, and he's forgotten all about it once he's out again, focused on other things, focused on not dying, on - on not going the way the _seventeen _implies the other sixteen _must_ have, the way _Vidic _implies the ones before him _definitely did._

* * *

He hears about the subject before him, subject sixteen, a few times. He asks Lucy about him, and the information she gives is - minimal. Worrying, but surface level. Lucy is as much an enigma is Sixteen is, in some ways, but a less - demanding one. Desmond's always hated what Sixteen's words meant for him - he'd... never really thought on what they meant for Sixteen. He had, in some ways. He'd pitied him because he certainly sounded crazy. 

The problem is, of course, that he's _dead. _Desmond has heard of people whose Other(s) had died before they'd met. It was painful. The Words burned if it happened - if you were unlucky enough for your Other(s) to die before you met them, to be born with them and to lose them. Sometimes, the loss of your Other killed you, as well, even if you'd never met them, even if you'd rejected the idea of a fated Other, of anything or anyone other than yourself choosing your partner(s). Even if you were happily married and had three kids and a good job. Even then.

But here he was. Desmond's Words glared as brightly as ever. Lucy knew about them because she was the one who monitored his room's camera. Sometimes, it seemed as if Lucy was as trapped as Desmond. She certainly never seemed to go home, when she left, because she always seemed to know what he'd been up to when she was gone. If he was or wasn't in the animus, either way, she'd just... know.

Must just review the footage. It's creepy, that's what it is. Lucy may seem friendly, but - she still works here. She might defend him to Vidic- but she relents, always, still sticks Desmond in the animus instead of, oh, he doesn't know, taking all the fucking evidence she has and spreading it as far and wide as she possibly can.

Lucy pities Desmond, he can just tell. And indulging him about sixteen, occasionally half-heartedly standing up to Vidic - that's all her pity means. If he wants to get out of here, to find wherever Sixteen is being kept, because he can't be dead - the words prove otherwise - well.

Desmond can't find out _here. _

* * *

The long-gone blood on the walls of his room, of the place he'd been _sleeping, _is something Desmond can't _not_ think about, especially once they're gone, on the road, driving away. He's stuffed in the trunk, confused and - and he'd killed people today. 

Killed. People.

It was different, to killing as Altair. Oh, god, the first time he'd done it he'd desynched, of course, he couldn't - Desmond wasn't a murderer.

He wasn't an assassin. He'd left. He _wasn't. _But - he'd only been reliving memories. And - and it had - brought back his instincts. You train for most of your life, from birth until young-adult-hood, then, well, things _stick. _It just brought it all back, and he'd - he'd killed tonight.

His dad would be so _fucking proud. _

So Desmond can't _not _think about the leftovers of the blood smeared on the walls of the place he'd been sleeping in. The walls he'd leaned against. The walls he'd stared at, unblinking, unable to sleep. The walls he'd been surrounded by, boxed in by, and he - he hadn't had time to read it all. Sixteen had left it for him to decipher, and he hadn't, he'd never had that chance. He'd read some of it, but he couldn't make heads or tails of it, it didn't make _sense, _the ravings of a madman, and he hates to think that but it's _true. _

_"What was his name?" _He'd asked, once.

_"Clay Kaczmarek." _Lucy had said. "_It's a long session today, so you'd better get ready."_

Desmond understood, now, why she'd been so - confusing. It didn't make it any easier though, to digest. That she'd been on his side the whole time, that she wasn't just indulging him, that she'd been trying, as best she could, to show her support without damaging her cover. 

He was grateful. And he wasn't. The dichotomy, he supposes, of her being the one to put him in the animus, most days. The first face he saw, the first face to represent his captors. The person who'd made him realise just how alone he was, in his captivity.

The person who'd saved him, in the end. The way she hadn't saved Sixteen.

Clay. Desmond's had a long twenty-five years, most of them in which he called him sixteen. That'd be a hard habit to break.

He'd try, though. Because - because The Words on his arm are there, golden, glowing, and real. Readable. They don't burn, and they won't burn. Sixteen isn't dead, because in all likelihood, if he _was_, Desmond would be as well.

It's just his sort of luck.

* * *

Shaun doesn't really get why Desmond focuses so hard on the Glyphs when they appear. Desmond doesn't care, because he knows.

The first time Desmond saw one, he knew it was now. He could feel it, it was just - it was like his arm was burning, but not in a way that was painful, exactly, just - something to draw his attention. The glow was brighter than normal, given Shaun's audible comment, and Desmond didn't really hear Rebecca's spiel about - whatever it is she was talking about, because - because...

This was it. Clay wasn't dead, because he was _here, _somewhere, somehow.

"_Desmond." _Desmond blinked, jolted, and walked up to the glyph.

"Right," He said. "Here goes nothing."

It was a strange sensation, the glyph activating - and Lucy, Rebecca, even Shaun - their voices cut off, muffled then gone, once the recording started playing.

"Hello. This is... eh, w-th-they call me Subject Sixteen, listen, I don't have much time. There's somethiiii- I, have to show you. We've been lied to this whole time. Everything we know, everything we've been - brought up to believe. It's wrong."

There's a long pause. It feels like one, anyway. Desmond - Desmond hears the white noise, registers it, as he digests the words he'd just heard.

He'd sounded scared. Maybe. Nervous. And the glitching - Desmond, at least, knew now why The Words on his arm were broken up the way they were.

So. He's here somewhere. And Desmond's _going to find him. _

* * *

Of course, everything goes downhill from there.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Careful what you wish for, Des.


	5. Clay. | ii | To Be Yourself Amongst The Stars (If Only).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meeting Desmond goes about as well as Clay'd expected. At least, he thinks. He's not really Clay, after all. Not in the ways that count.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (He is, though. Being in the animus, being made of 1s and 0s, it doesn't make him any less _himself_.)

Desmond's words are on his arm.

It leaves a bitter taste in Clay's mouth, because, as Altair, as Ezio, he doesn't have them. Clay wants to know what The Words count as his 'first words'... and yes. Clay knows it's Desmond. At the moment, Clay's not-life revolves around him, and if Juno's to be believed, it always has done - so why wouldn't it be him? That's the point of The Words.

Your fate is each other.

Even if it kills you.

* * *

Juno was a nightmare to deal with, when she'd 'talked' to him. It was less like talking, though. That would imply an equal level of conversation. What Juno did, was... more equivolent to a data dump. She dumped all the data into his brain, and wasn't surprised when it didn't go well, shoving it all in, all at once - but she cared less for him. 

Clay was a means to an end. He was a tool, a tool in her plan. Her plan to save the world, to doom it, to save Desmond in order to -

Clay found himself, sitting on the island, among the pillars, unsure of where his thoughts had led him this time. Whenver he started thinking too hard on Juno's plans, things went - strange. Time - lost him. He lost time. Time was fickle, unlike the calculations, unlike the Isu, in their strong-willed dominance and apathetic rationality.

But Juno wasn't like that. She talked and talked and _talked _about her people, about their superiority, about how they made humans to be the way they are, how The Words are nothing more than a _brand, _than a way to force together _breeding pairs, _how she finds it just so _amusing _that humans have given them more meaning, how religions have formed and fell because of them, how nothing they know is true and nothing they can do is something _they _made themselves able to do, but what the Isu permitted them to be capable of.

Nothing is true, Clay thought, laughing. _Everything is permitted._

Yeah, right. 

Still. Juno wasn't like that. She wasn't apathetic. She wasn't rational. She was cold and aloof and violent in her presence, angry in her countenance. Looking at her hurt, like her malevolence radiated from her form in a physical manner, but maybe that's because he's here, and when in the animus, you are _here. _In her domain.

The Grey, she calls it. The place in between. It's something like a limbo, a purgatory, fields of asphodel, the gates of heaven and hell. Transitional. Impermanent, but permanent. A neutral ground in the aftermath. No Man's Land.

No Man's Land, indeed. Humans being here is unprecedented. You _need _Isu DNA to access it. And since you need Isu DNA to use Isu tech, and the Animus is Isu tech...

Clay shook his head, glitched and appeared, teleported but didn't move, to the shoreline. It wasn't teleportation, exactly. He just moved perspective, so he was at the shore and not on the 'hill'. Clay watched the looped waves lap against the sand, waded out as far as the animus would let him before he hit the wall, then leant against it, ignored the static against his palms, the warning signal to back off, back up, get away from the edge of your reality.

He stared out, at the endless ocean. It would take some time, for Desmond, to find him. He was out of Abstergo's clutches, for now - and not really, because of _her - _but he was still not there _yet. _He wasn't ready, but he'd have to be. They were running out of time. He was running out of time, because Juno was running out of time, because Desmond was running out of time.

So much time, so little _time. _

Clay laughed, glitched to the rock at the front of the island, stared up at the imposingly tall nexus, looked inside it at the endless nothing and then beside it to the endless ocean, that yet seemed to reach nowhere near as far as the nexus did.

Clay had put the glyphs where they needed to be, before he'd opened the floodgates and poured himself inside this AI, inside this construct of not-quite-Clay that sits, right here, on this rock, before the nexus. Waiting. Watching. Wondering if this was all worth it.

(Of course it wasn't. Of course it was. Clay's to save Desmond, and Desmond - well. He doesn't even need the second half of the reason. The Words may yet save him - people have done miraculous things because of them - but they have doomed him, all the same.)

* * *

Clay spaced out a lot. It was mostly dull, just.. wating here, with his thoughts, with his neurosies and nothing to calm him, because the looping waves and the lack of wind just didn't help his mood at all - so... he stopped thinking, sometimes. It was easier as an AI than it had been for the real Clay. He could just turn himself off, sort-of, conserve power, keep himself hidden. He had to do it, often, because the Animus would treat him like a foreign invader and strike him down where he stood. A virus. Like any other. 

But there were moments he didn't miss. He watched Desmond solve the glyphs, one by one, in the order that he found them. They were always what he looked for, first, despite Hastings' nagging, despite _her _encouragements, and completely aligned with Rebecca's curiosity.

Hastings wanted to know as much as Rebecca did, perhaps more, Clay could tell. But he was contrarian for contrarian's sake, about Desmond. Clay didn't get it, but Hastings was entitled to being a dick. He'd hate himself for it later. When Juno's plan is put in motion.

Clay's hands clenched in the sand, scratchy grains of not-real-substance digging into his palm, uncomfortably sticking under his nails. The sand only went so deep, though. He'd dug once. He'd barely gotten half a foot down before he hit solid nothing, the texture of sand but the hardness of diamond, the strength of titanium. Parallax textures, on a flat plane. Clay closed his eyes against the ambient glare of the island. The water looped, repetitively, in his ears, and he sat, eyes closed, hands clenched in the itchy sand, and -

Did nothing. Waited. Listened. Watched as Desmond solved another Glyph.

He'd have finished them all soon. He'd have finished with Ezio, soon. Or, at least - he'll have _thought _he had.

* * *

Lucy's death is vindicating. Clay watches it more than once, watches as the woman who didn't _care enough to save him _dies, dies dies - 

Waits for Desmond to wake up. He was put in the animus immediately, thanks to the incompetence and stupidity of his _co-workers, _do they _want _him brain-dead - it's funny, really, because in any other situation, if Clay wasn't here, if he hadn't made this place - this would doom Desmond. He was doomed either way, if it weren't for Juno, if it weren't, by extension, for Clay - and because of Clay, because of Juno - he is, still, doomed anyway.

Clay laughs, because if he doesn't, well.

Clay crouches, near Desmond.

"Desmond Miles," He shakes his head. "Your life has changed so much, in so little time..." Clay laughs, slightly, stands and looks around. There's nothing like a life that changes in a matter of minutes. Desmond's record is higher than Clay's, maybe. Or, it will be. For now, Clay's got that one, gold star and all.

"I mean," Clay looks back at Desmond's prone body. "Two months ago, new york - pouring shots for bankers and celebrities. A world away from all this-" He gestures, holds his arms out, encompassing everything; the island, the nexus, himself, Desmond, lying there, on the floor, unresponsive. "But now... look at you." Clay drops his arms, crouches down again. "You're an _assassin." _His lips twist. "One of us," He says, mirthless laughter bubbling forth. "Unlucky." He adds. He smiles, harsh. "One of the _good guys, _isn't that nice?" Clay stands, as he turns around. "'Men and women, dedicated to preserving life and human liberty,'" He quoted, rolling his eyes and scoffing at Bill's little _recruitment slogan. _"Not like those Templars," Clay says, tone dripping with sarcasm and genuine scorn. Who it was aimed at - everyone. No-one. Did it matter? "Cold and calculating, obsessed with order and all that. Funny, how the only thing different I can see between _William _and them is the last part; wanting to enslave humanity. Know the enemy, though, right?" Clay turned around, looked at Desmond. Desmond lay there, very still, and did not say anything.

"Yeah," Clay agreed. "Exactly."

Clay glitched closer, crouched in front of Desmond, close enough to see each individual eyelash. "We're doing our best to _stop _them," Clay said, leaned back. "Supposedly."

Desmond did not stir.

"But you remember all this, right?" Clay said, cocking his head. "The memory scramble hasn't gotten you that badly, yet." Clay tilts his head the other way. "You remember the animus, the machine we use to remember the lives of our ancestors?" Clay hums. "Hopefully," He adds. "It would be easier for me if you do."

Still nothing. Clay shrugs. "First, Altair." Clay smiled, a slash of a thing, brittle and not done out of happiness. "Then, Ezio." He stands. "But now, you're all confused. Aren't you?" He looks over, at the nexus. "That's what that will be for." He looks back at Desmond.

There's a pause. Desmond is breathing, still as a statue, but - breathing. Clay crouches down again.

"And what did you and your ancestors have in common?" Clay asks. A pause. Desmond's chest rises and falls, and there's a glow from his right sleeve, something seeping through the fabric of his t-shirt and his hoodie, something bright enough to shine despite the barriers of clothing covering it. "That's right," Clay says. "The Apple of Eden." Clay looks at the hill, the pillars with their doorways, programmed to activate upon Desmond's arrival. "You felt it's power, didn't you?" Clay said, looked back at Desmond. He laughed, a dark sort of chuckle.

"Oh, it's been _fun, _hasn't it, Desmond?" Clay stands again, walks towards the nexus, steps over Desmond's unconscious form.

"But that's about to change," He says, looks into the endless depths of the nexus. "Your mind," He tells him, "Is **_f-rag-m-en-t--e-d. Falling a-pa-rt._"** Clay walks back over to Desmond. "_In **pieces. **_And if you don't find a way to _wake up-" _Here he kicks him, in the side, but Desmond doesn't respond - "You're going to lose yourself. Forever."

Clay watches Desmond, who is still there, prone, doing nothing. Clay sighs, and glitches to the other side of the island.

* * *

"_What's happening - I can't move - **No!"**  
_

Ah. Finally.

Clay watches, unable to be seen, as Desmond rolls over and puts a hand to his head. The island glitches, the lighting flashing over everything in a soft, strong white glow, before it settles, again. Desmond stands, looks around.

"Hello?" He yells. Desmond walks around, for a moment - then notices the Nexus. He moves, as if to go towards it - Clay alters the perspective, moves, and appears, sitting on the rock, to his left, slightly behind him.

"Just walk right past me," Clay says, smiling slightly, leans his hand and his arm on his legs.

"Subject sixteen?" He asks, halfway through turning around, at the point he can see Clay.

"Come on now, I know you know my name," Clay says. He stands.

"I was right," Desmonds says. "You were - _augh!" _He glares upwards, changes tack mid-sentence. "I'm still in the animus!"

"Quite a shock, you suffered out there," Clay says, standing, stretching.

"Rebecca!" Desmond says, loudly. "Get me out of here!"

"They can't help you Desmond," Clay says. "You're a broken man," He says, simply. "Your mind is... broken."

Desmond looks at him, frowning. His hand reaches up, rubs at his bicep, and then he blinks, frowns deeper. "Broken?" He asks. He starts to shake his head. "I feel fine."

Clay dives at him, glitches, teleports, a little too close, invading his space, and Desmond, surprised, falls back, lands on the ground, smacks the back of his head on the ground and doesn't feel the pain that would normally entail. "So did I," Clay says, dangerously, and laughs. "Look at me now!" He gestures, holds up his arms for a moment, grins down at Desmond.

Desmond stares.

"Let's talk, buddy," Clay says, and holds out his hand. Desmond breaks out of his reverie, and reaches up, out, clasps his right hand into Clay's left. Desmond's eyes are drawn, inevitably, to the glowing words decorating his wrists, covering the scars that led him here, to this place, to meeting his Other.

Clay hauls him up, smirks. "Not important now, Desmond." He says. Clay turns, walks away from him a few steps, then turns again.

"Walk with me." He says. Desmond does.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp.


	6. Desmond. | iii | To Be Free To Roam (If Only).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Monteriggioni is beautiful at night. In the animus.

It takes Desmond a long time to decipher the Glyphs, what they mean. Shaun is abrasive about it, insistent on Desmond just getting synched enough to carry on, but... Desmond is - it's a lot, synching. The side things, the things Rebecca added - missions to train with, extra stories to take his mind off of the horrors of Ezio's life, the glyphs, the feathers, they let him think.

It's a distraction, but a welcome one. Lucy disapproves, but she's softer than when at Abstergo. No more breaks - in fact, he's in the animus _more, _now, now they've got a time limit, now they're trying to beat out the Templars in speed and, yes, efficiency - but... more freedom, all the same. He's free to run around the warehouse to practice, free to sleep when he needs to, free to eat whatever they have in when he wants to. He has more breaks but shorter breaks, so it - it feels like he's in the animus for longer than he is.

He is in it _more _though, because, even though he was in it pretty much every second of every daylight-hour during his time in Abstergo, well, he wasn't very good at synching with Altair. He's a lot better at synching with Ezio, a lot more sympathetic to his plights. Altair got better, as he aged, but he was still... difficult to understand. Desmond never quite _got _him, the way he gets Ezio. So, it's easier. He synchs easier, goes through the memories easier. But because it's easier, it's harder. He gets more attached, and Desmond's started sharing in Ezio's nightmares, no replacements necessary. The ones based on his memories, the ones based on his fears.

And the bleeding effect is getting worse. Of course.

The last glyph gives Desmond a very hollow feeling, as he looks at it. He's - so close to the end, now. Of Ezio's story, or at least - what he needs of it. He's _so _close. He's gotten the feathers for Maria. He's gotten 100% synch on nearly everything. There's a few more missions to go, and he's done.

And here, before him, is one of the things he's been putting off. Because this is the last one. And none of them have given him any clues as to where Sixteen might be.

_"Clay is dead, Desmond," _Lucy said, tiredly, one evening. _"I saw the footage. I watched him die, Desmond, he's dead."_

_"Why are you so obsessed with this anyway?"_ Shaun had asked, because there's no privacy in the warehouse. 

_"Shaun," _Rebecca had said.

_"No, really." _Shaun had turned to Desmond. _"Why? I mean, I get wanting to know things you shouldn't know, I do-"_

Rebecca had snorted, loudly. 

_"Yes, yes. Anyway - I get that. But the guy himself? He was important, don't get me wrong, but sixteen was just - he was an assassin that we lost. There are lots of those."_

Rebecca had sighed. Desmond had shrugged.

_"Just matters." _Desmond had said. "_Maybe I don't think important people should be forgotten."_

"Are you going to sit there or get on with it?" Shaun says, bored. Desmond jolts out of the memory, sighs, and looks at the glyph through eagle vision. 

The Truth, later, is a strange video. Shaun put it in order, and Desmond watched it enough times to know it off by heart, but it was still - confusing. He understood it well enough. Mostly... mostly he'd just - he'd hoped for something. For some clue.

Clay isn't dead, because his Words still glow, brighter than ever. The futher along they get in their mission, the brighter The Words get. Shaun's been complaining, lately, about stealth, and how a glowing fucking arm affects it, but. Well.

Not much Desmond can do about it.

* * *

Monteriggioni is beautiful at night. In the Animus. Desmond sits, perched on the edge of the roof, as Ezio had done centuries before, and looks down at the town. It's nothing like it was, once, the years of neglect after the assault a mark on itself it will never recover - but it's here, still. It stands strong, destroyed but well built. Not important enough to pay the upkeep, but important enough not to knock down. 

It's something. Desmond wishes it was more.

Sometimes, when he's up here, the bleeding effect kicks in, in that half-real way it sometimes does. He's sitting up here, staring down, and it does it again - the strange shades, the ghosts of the people that used to live here, roaming the streets, chattering, the echoes of noise reaching his mind if not his ears. He watches as a small boy chases his friend around a street corner, watches the merchants peddle their wares, watches people come and go from the church, the brothel, the barracks, sometimes from one straight to the other.

Desmond sighs, a puff of warm air released into the coolness of the night. He clambers down, to the inner courtyard, does a lap around the house, stares across at the brightening horizon, and waits long enough for Lucy to start nagging him before he delves back down, under the house, into the dark, broken basement, not quite ready to go back in the animus - but having no choice in the matter.

* * *

Sixteen... is both what he expected, and nothing at all like it. He'd expected a man that was, frankly, quite insane. He'd also expected someone like on the recordings, someone who sounded like the recordings - but there was a difference, something about the way he spoke, like the voice was _just _different enough to notice.

Maybe it was lost in translation. Man to artificial construct. But he can't be, can he? The AI before him _must _just be Clay, the man, not something false, not something fake. The glowing letters on his wrists betray him. He's dead, Desmond now knows, but only in body. His mind may be broken, like Clay tells Desmond his own is, but it's not dead, not yet.

"Walk with me," Clay says, and Desmond does.

"What is this place?" He asks. Desmond looks around as they walk; at the ocean, the sand, the rocks, the strange formations, the pillars that reach impossibly high into the sky, that strange archway - and at Clay. At his profile, staring straight ahead as they walk along the beach. How long has he been here, Desmond wonders? When, exactly, did he die? No-one ever told him. Luc-

"It's nice, isn't it?" Clay says, that strange lilt to his voice. "We're in the guts of the animus. Original test program. No memories here, just basic physics, weather simulations... 'Hello world!" He laughs. Desmond thinks that's a joke, but he was never one for computers. 

"You're lucky someone out there had the sense to plug you in here," Clay says, still light-toned. It was strange. One moment, he was scaring the hell out of him. The next, perfectly pleasant.

"That saved your life," Clay says. "Saved from what?" Desmond frowns, as he looks at Clay. They stop, come to holt before the strange, tall, impossibly deep archway, and Clay turns to him. "Right now you should be sitting in a hospital bed, drooling and chewing on your _tongue,_" Clay says, sharply. "For now, the animus is keeping you intact," He continues, softer. "Keeping all your ancestors from collapsing into one big mess."

They continue walking, closer to the large archway.

"You can't find a synch nexus, all those personalities will smash together." He pauses, hops over a rock and walks closer to the archway. "A Synch nexus?" Desmond asks, slowing down, staring up at the - well. Presumably, exactly what he just asked clarification for.

"I'm getting there, hold on." Clay requests. Desmond walks closer, and Clay disappears, in a shifting glow of blue light, lines going off in all directions - and then he's gone, squares of him dissected away by the lines leftover, before they're gone, too.

"That is your way out," Desmond hears from behind him, and he turns, to see Clay sat on a rock, once again, leaning on his leg and pointing at the archway. He leans back, drops his hands to rest his wrists on his legs. The Words are glowing, glowing bright, and Desmond trusts him without meaning to.

"Your brain is hash," Clay says. "Too many voices in your head, too many ghosts - so how to fix that?" He looks directly at Desmond, but his eyes flick momentarily to the glowing of his right bicep, the way The Words want so badly to be known that they're attempting to show past his clothing.

Clay gestures as he talks. "You claw your way back through stored data, you find unfinished memories and you crack them open." Desmond looks away, for a moment, back at the Synch Nexus. "Finish what you started," Clay says, and Desmond returns his attention to the man on the rock. "Until your ancestor has nothing left to show you." He smiles. "_That _is a synch nexus."

Desmond looks at the Nexus.

"Find it, and you can separate Desmond from Ezio and Altair and so on and so forth," Clay says. "And then, you can go home. Back to your body."

Desmond frowns. "How do you know all this?" He asks, taking a step back from the nexus and looking at Clay. "Because it happened to _me," _Clay says. He stands.

"But my body, it's worm food now," Clay says, walking closer. "So I'm stuck here. But you?" He shakes his head. Desmond looks back at the Nexus, steps closer.

"A word of warning?" Clay says, and Desmond looks back at him. "When you step through there, everything changes." Desmond frowns at him. "Nothing feels... normal," Clay continues, then waves a hand, "But you are still in control. And it's up to you to find your way out." His voice lilts up at the end, a strange light lift. "If you hurry," He says, and he's - smiling? "You might make it back in time for Lucy's funeral."

Lucy? -

"What?" Desmond asks, and then he stumbles. It hurts, pain - the memories, coming forward, struggling to stick in his mind, the pain of them being so suddenly unburied, a rush, forced upon him - the apple's strength, her, that woman - and him, moving, straining not to but strongly turning - and his arm, moving upwards - the hidden blade sliding softly between her ribs, fitting snugly into her heart, snuffing out her light, killing her for _being in the way, _for being a _templar, _for disrupting _her plan - _

"Oh," Clay says, Desmond hears, through the rush of the memory, the haze of the pain, crystal clear - "I thought you knew."

Desmond doesn't notice him leave, caught up in his memory - the words he says, he means, but Desmond doesn't hear them over the noise of the hidden blade, a _shink _as it is released into Lucy, the thud her as she fell to the ground, her lifeless eyes parallel to his own, the last thing he saw, the last thing he heard her gasp, _her _words, _her, _that woman, Juno, her control gripping him, tying a noose around his neck and _pulling, _forcing him to do the unthinkable.

He'd liked Lucy. She'd been a friend, a person he'd cared for, despite everything. And he'd killed her. And, in the end, she'd been a Templar the whole time. Had, probably, never been _his _friend, but, god, he was still so _sorry. _

Desmond stood, shakily, pushed himself up from the floor, to a standing position in front of the nexus.

"What am I doing?" He asked himself, but, well, he didn't know. He had no idea what he was doing, and he hadn't, not for any of his life. None of his decisions had been made with any sort of intelligence. He'd never had the whole picture. He'd never just _known, _with any certainty, about what he was doing.

"What have I _done?" _He asked the air, but nobody answered. Desmond took a breath, stared at the Synch Nexus, and made his choice.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the point where we stop sticking so closely to the script. We'll veer off into more non-canonical territory soon. This AU will start to actually be AU! Amazing. Lmao.


	7. Rebecca | i | A Ghost In The Making.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Desmond wakes up, his eyes are blue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello, sorry beyond all measure, a year is somewhat unexcusable. Still, here you go, and I hope this isn't disappointing after such a long wait.

It's a day like any other, when it happens. Rebecca is monitoring Desmond's vitals. Shaun is doing his own job, one of the various tasks - historical, organisational - on his computer. Bill is driving, silently, eyes trained straight ahead, posture so sure and stiff and still you'd think him a statue, breathing quiet and discrete enough to hide. 

It was a normal day, in the van, on the road. 

Rebecca had been staring at the monotony of Desmond's vitals for so long, she registers the change as soon as it happens. 

"Guys," She says, loudly, standing. "Guys, get over here - I think - I think his vitals - look at them," She gestures, hardly believing her own eyes after so long of staring at the numbers on the hologram screens. 

Bill has to pull over on the road, so Shaun's the first to get there. Neither man says anything, however, just stare in - possibly something akin to hope. "Something's happening," Rebecca says, to fill the silence. Bill puts his hand on Desmond's shoulder; Shaun stares, openly, as Bill starts to talk.

"Desmond, can you hear me?" The Mentor says, softer than anything else she's ever heard coming from his mouth. "Son?" He adjusts his grip on Desmond's shoulder, squeezing ever so slightly. "Desmond?" He repeats.

Desmond blinks, blearily, as he awakens, not with a start, but as if from a long night's sleep.

His eyes are blue. Rebecca blinks, and the bright, electric, blinding unreality of the colour is gone - but the blue, greyish now and utterly human, remains within the brown, like Desmond suddenly developed some kind of heterochromia. 

His attention turns to the apple sitting on the table. Desmond looks... disoriented, but not as much as he probably should do, after so long in a coma. Desmond sits up, shrugs off Bill's hand but allows Rebecca to unhook him from the animus. He doesn't look at Shaun at all, though he gives Bill a brief, unreadable stare, and then grimaces somewhat awkwardly at Rebecca. 

"I know what we need to do," He says. 

"About time," Shaun says, brusquely, covering up any kind of vulnerability he could have been feeling. Rebecca knows he was worried, despite everything he said - Shaun is just sort of... awful, when he's upset. They've all got their unfortunate quirks; wouldn't be Assassins if they didn't. 

Desmond trains his eyes back on the apple, from where they'd drifted off. Rebecca wants to mention the heterochromia, and she can see that Shaun and Bill do, too, because it's _strange, _because a coma shouldn't change your eye colour, but she bites her tongue and waits, because this - what Desmond knows, now - is more important than anything else.

The world ends soon, if they don't stop it. 

"There's a temple," Desmond says. He tells them what The Ones That Came Before told him, about what happened to the Isu, and the humans, last time. Rebecca thinks, looking at him, at the distance in his eyes, the furrow in his brow, and the way he's rubbing, gently, the smooth skin on the inside of his wrist with the thumb of his other hand, that he's keeping something from them. 

"Then that's where we need to go," Bill says. 

"Yeah," Desmond responds, vaguely, eyes glued on the apple again. "Yeah, it is."

There isn't much light, in the van. No where to put a source, and even if they did, it wouldn't be a good idea. Rebecca had tied a couple shirts around Desmond's arm, over the mark, to hide the glow; it flared up, often, during his coma, and that was a liability. Not... too often, sometimes it died down so much Rebecca had thought it had disappeared, but often _enough, _for it to be a regular occurrence, something that needed to be dealt with. Bill had been extra paranoid about it.

Rebecca was pretty sure he was mostly just mad his son had one at all. Bill didn't, after all, and neither had his wife. Some people thought kids of unmatched pairs were less likely to have a mark, and Rebecca knows Bill only sees them as dangerous. A mark can be a death sentence, that much she knows. Rebecca herself doesn't have one, and neither does Shaun. Neither did Lucy. 

They're getting rarer, the news says, whenever Rebecca catches it playing on a TV somewhere. People have mixed feelings about it, and Rebecca feels mostly the same. She's never had one, she doesn't know what it's like, but she's seen people that do, seen them in real life and on the screen, news stories about tragic deaths and anecdotes about happy marriages. 

But it doesn't really matter, what Rebecca thinks about it. She wonders, now, how Desmond feels about his, growing up with Bill, and after. The Assassins tend to prefer those without marks, because its safer. Rebecca has met two born Assassins with a mark, one of those being Desmond. There's something behind that, she thinks.

Desmond shifts, and reaches up, brow furrowed, noticing the extra fabric wrapped around his bicep.

"Sorry," Rebecca says, "That was for the glow." She helps him disentangle the knots, and the shirts fall to the ground, but before she does, she notices something. The glow is seeping through the fabric, somehow; just slightly, but enough to see.

When the cotton hits the floor, Rebecca looks up and winces. "Jesus Christ," Shaun says, shielding his eyes. "Put those back on."

Desmond frowns at it. He looks over at the apple, again, and the brightness flares, just slightly.

There are folk tales, about marks, Rebecca knows. Not just folk tales; fables, stories, entire media franchises. But there's this one that niggles at the back of her brain, right now; the brighter the glow, the closer the soulmate. Like a homing beacon, but for a spiritual connection. 

Desmond, in a move Rebecca admittedly should have predicted, lunges for the apple. Rebecca doesn't grab him in time, and neither does Shaun - he'd have to move around the animus, the van isn't big enough to go jumping around - and Bill swerves the car to a halt in the middle of the deserted road, and Desmond closes his hand in a vice-tight grip around the reactive sphere - and gold lines shoot out, and it feels, to Rebecca, like she's moving through tar; slow, and sticky, and unyielding, and she watches as Desmond raises the Apple, clutches it tighter in his palm, as the lines solidify and converge and form a shape, something glowing and amorphous, but gaining form, turning something close to human but too bright, too gold, and Rebecca remembers this - Ezio made clones of himself, didn't he? - and it solidifies, shape determined, and Rebecca feels a small jolt of recognition, as the glow fades, as the lines retreat, and the figure standing before her in constructed skin and bone, an ashy fabrication, eyes that same greyish blue -

"What is going -" Bill starts -

The man blinks, and nearly drops to the ground like a brick in the ocean, but Desmond catches him, and the blonde only stumbles.

Rebecca saw his picture, once. 

"Subject sixteen," Shaun mutters, wide-eyed. _Clay Kaczmarek, _Rebecca thinks. 

The blonde man is shaking, slightly, only half-standing because of the support, and Rebecca figures that's reasonable, after so long being... well, _dead. _Or... stuck, she thinks, looking at the animus in a new light, in an unreal place that he couldn't escape. 

The memory unit in the animus is the one from Abstergo. Rebecca wonders, for just a single, brief moment, if Lucy knew - but she couldn't have, could she? By the end Clay Kaczmarek would not have trusted her enough to tell her, and - and she was a Templar, not an Assassin plant. He would have been right to think as he must have. 

The feeling still leaves her hollow. Lucy Stillman, the Templar plant. How had they not known? How had they not seen it coming? They'd left her isolated for _years. _When she finally joined the Templars, she must have been so _alone. _And _young_. And so many other things.

People had died because of Lucy, and not the people that should have. The people she should have _protected. _It's a thought that still leaves Rebecca grasping at straws, all this time later. 

"Great going, Seventeen," Clay says, and it sounds mocking. "And what happens when you have to put that thing down?"

Desmond clutches the apple tighter in his grip. Clay adjusts his posture, rests his chin on Desmond's shoulder, and grins sharply at Bill.

"Hello, _William," _Clay says. "You look like you've seen a ghost, _Mentor." _The mocking tone is stronger, now, sharper. There's anger behind it, and there's a story behind that Rebecca doesn't know. 

Looking at Bill... he really does look like he's seen a ghost. But he pulls himself together very quickly, and gives Clay a curt nod.

"Clay," Bill greets, eyes hard. "Desmond, put the apple down."

Desmond does not. He half-helps Clay into a sort of... guided fall onto one of the seats, and keeps a tight, protective grip on the apple the whole while. 

"Don't think I will, Dad," Desmond says. Will presses his lips together, annoyed. "It's dangerous to keep a hold of," Bill reminds him. Odd shadows are being cast from the glow of the mark through Desmond's arm... and Rebecca suddenly notices the bright glow coming from Clay's wrists, turned down towards the floor. Looking at him, at the... not quite dead man, Rebecca can see the glow in other places, tiny, thin gold lines, like circuitry. But other than that, the recreation - or illusion - is impeccable. He looks nothing if not _human. _

Rebecca looks at the glow of the apple, it's particular shade of gold, looks at the gold lines in Clay's skin and at the gold glow of the marks, and notes, mentally, that they're all the same. Same exact tone, same exact vibrancy, same exact otherworldly glow, even if the one on the lines in his skin is so minimal because they're so thin it's almost impossible to spot. 

"Go on, put it down," Clay says. "You can make me a _real boy _later. I'll just hang around in there," Clay pokes the side of Desmond's head, on the temple, probably very intentionally, Rebecca thinks wryly. Desmond frowns. 

"In there?" Bill asks, tone suddenly dangerous. Rebecca replays the statement in her head, and then considers what it implies. 

"Where else would I be, Bill?" Clay asks, rhetorical. "Apple of Eden can't make people out of nothing. It needs schematics. The AI shoved in your son's brain allows for this corporeal ghost to exist." Clay gestures to himself. "Without that memory unit from Abstergo, I wouldn't be here, so I suppose there's one thing I can thank Lucy's dead body for, _after I spit on her grave_." His voice warps, slightly, stutters like a machine malfunction. 

Shaun goes very still. Desmond flinches, ever so minutely. 

Clay looks at Desmond. "What, did you think I'd suddenly start caring about the people that killed me?" Clay scoffs. "Put the fucking apple down, _Seventeen_." 

"I thought this was what you wanted," Desmond says, frustrated. "You asked to come with me. I said yes."

Clay glowers, twitches, like he means to do something and then suddenly realises he can't.

"Welcome back to being alive," Desmond says, without mirth. "You can't just glitch out of a conversation when you're done with it."

He wasn't looking at Clay - he'd been staring out of the front windshield, at the rural scenery surrounding them. 

"Bullshit," Clay snarls, and he knocks the apple out of Desmond's hand. Clay flickers, and then something abruptly terrified takes over his expression, and then he's gone. 

Like he was never there in the first place. 

Desmond leans his head back and sighs. Bill is frowning at him, expression disapproving and disgruntled. 

"We should get back on the road," Rebecca says. "We need to get to this temple," Shaun agrees.

"I was also thinking food," Rebecca says. "After a coma, a good meal sounds like an idea."

Desmond lets out a slow, tired breath, and shrugs one shoulder, non-committal. 

"We don't have time," Bill says, and Desmond nods, absently, like he expected it. "Shaun, if you would," The Mentor gestures to the drivers seat, and without a word Shaun goes and sits in it, starts the engine, and puts the van into gear.

Rebecca pushes the animus up against one side of the van, to give them more floor space, then sits down on her chair. Bill sits opposite his son.

Neither Miles says anything. To drown out the awkward atmosphere, Rebecca puts her headphones in, and nods along to her playlist as she tides up a couple programs, with nothing better to do that she feels fully capable of giving her full attention.

It's October. They don't have much time to get to this Grand Temple and save the world, but they have some. It has to be enough. This whole thing with Clay complicates matters, assuredly, but... there's nothing they can do. If he's stuck with Desmond, then he's stuck with Desmond, and Bill can frown all he likes but - nothing's going to get done if all he and Desmond do is argue. 

Rebecca hopes things start looking up when they get to the place they need to be, though something deep inside her feels that hope is futile at best, that in the end they'd be lucky to survive themselves, like those original ten-thousand humans, and that saving humanity is a pipe dream they can't even begin to achieve. 

But that's what its always been, hasn't it? And the Assassins are still kicking. Rebecca ponders on this, absently pulls out an earbud to scratch at an itch. Her hand stills as voices drift in, attention peaked. 

"- choice."

"It was a poor choice," Bill says, very coldly and very bluntly. Desmond just sighs. "I don't think it was," He says. There's not exactly a tone of surety to his voice, however. Bill picks up on the same thing, it seems, because his next words are cutting. "I'd have thought by now you'd have learned to think things through," He says. "The consequences of your actions, now, Desmond - every move you make - could affect the lives of over seven billion people. The world is at stake, here. I taught you better than to chase some foolish notion -"

"You didn't teach me anything." Desmond says. Bill quietens, for a moment. "I taught you everything you needed to know," Bill says, firmly. "The fact you managed to survive alone for as long as you did proved that at least _some _lessons stuck. And if you recall, the _second _you forgot what I taught you you were abducted by Abstergo."

"You didn't teach me how to drive," Desmond says. "You didn't teach me how to hitchhike, how to get a job, how to fake your identity, how to live in the real world with real people. The only thing you ever taught me was how to lie to _you, _specifically, and how to _kill people. _Forgive me for forgetting those lessons, _Dad," _Desmond says, the last word especially heavy with sarcastic intent. 

Rebecca winces. 

"I taught you how to fight -"

"How to take a punch from my old man, yeah," Desmond says, "What a great way to bond, dad. I was utterly _convinced _The Farm was a cult for _so long, _Dad, and you didn't help anything at all. The Mentor? The fact we couldn't leave? The fact we had no access to the outside world? The initiation? The mantra? The Farm fit every letter of that fucking bill, Dad. And you never gave me any proof. What was I supposed to think? That the company that made the pain meds you gave me after 'I' broke my nose or my arm or got punched too hard or got cut because I didn't doge properly was pure evil? That every infiltration mission where the person never came back wasn't just to cover up them being killed? That every person we just suddenly stopped talking about like they never existed never existed? You told us too much and not enough. Every single one of those kids was _fucked, _and you know it."

The Farm was, from what Rebecca knew, Bill's lifelong dream. A place where Assassins could live freely, raise their families, have a _life. _She'd never been, but she'd heard nothing but good about it. 

Rebecca had only ever met two of The Farm's kids. Desmond, and Lucy. She'd heard things about the others. Rose tinted lenses, Rebecca thinks, and then; what would it be like? To grow up in the middle of nowhere learning about the endless war from the moment you were born?

Rebecca looks down at her keyboard. Thinking about it, _really _thinking about it, taking into account what she's eavesdropped on, just now... she thinks she gets why Desmond ran, and never looked back. Why initiated Assassins tend to have their shit together more than born ones. Especially Farm Kids. 

Rebecca knows the conversation isn't finished, but she feels all of a sudden very bad about listening in. Rebecca puts her earbud back in, and tries to concentrate on her work, instead, but her thoughts are all over the place.

Rebecca sighs, puts on her distraction playlist, and tries not to dwell on anything in particular. 

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry it took this long to get back to writing for this fandom. You could say I kinda used up all my ideas in my other fic, whoops. Anyway, unoriginal soulmate AU coming up, mixed with Angst and Pain. You've been warned. :)


End file.
